Newspaper Article

Get Weeds When They're Young

A Garden Journal Donna Redman For the Journal

2002

Overview

The two things all weeds have in common is that they're hard to get rid of and they're prolific. According to [Richard D. Lee], a single tumbleweed (also known as Russian thistle) produces 200,000 seeds. So when your car is attacked by a tumbleweed in the early spring, literally thousands of seeds imbed themselves in the crevices of the tire tread. Thus you inadvertently spread those seed for miles, planting masses of tumbleweeds as you go. You can win the weed wars if you're persistent. As you stroll around your yard watching things grow, pull weeds. You might have to use a forked weeding tool to get the deep tap roots of weeds like dandelions and Canada thistles, but if you don't get the whole root, they'll come back. It isn't realistic to expect to eradicate every weed. I think you have to decide which weeds have to go and which ones you can live with. I suppose you could consider the chocolate flowers in our front yard to be weeds. We bought one plant four years ago, and the next spring we had half a dozen or so. No problem. Then last year we decided to convert the small patch of Kentucky blue grass to water- thrifty blue gramma. A few tufts of blue gramma came up, but you certainly couldn't call it a lawn. It was more like a weed patch. This year, some of those weeds bloomed, and they turned out to be mostly chocolate flower. Now that little patch of what is supposed to be lawn looks more like a grassy meadow, with some grass, lots of chocolate flower, and some other blooming plants that I hope aren't too invasive.

• Publisher: Albuquerque Publishing Company
• Subject: Lee, Richard